Discussion on Feminism

While I’m not sure whether I can call present-day feminism as third wave feminism, but it certainly feels like another step towards the long, winding staircase of gender equality.

As a guy, considering myself “feminist” is an interesting experience. I’m like an agent, a spy, dropped behind “enemy” lines; except everyone knows who I am. Or at least, I’m fairly open about which side of the feminism debate I’m on.

It’s interesting because other guys will say stuff in front of me that they may not have said had a woman, especially one who’d consider herself feminist, been present to hear them. It’s also interesting because there will be moments where I find myself in a spot where I’m committing acts of sexism, or exploiting a patriarchal privilege without realising it. Then I catch myself, and slap myself mentally.

But I also become an incredible asset because I’m in a prime position to sabotage (yes, I’m rather fond of war analogies, even though war isn’t something I’d like to see more of) the existing structures that encourage, enforce and propagate sexism. I’m not conforming to “tradition”, and non-conformity usually encourages dissent, which is a great thing in this context.

However, I also end up being an easier target for the “BUT FEMINAZIS WILL KILL US ALL!” type of arguments. I usually find that these arguments stem from either a misunderstanding of what feminism is, a feeling of threat to existing privileges that we men take for granted, or just plain sexism, fully aware of what’s happening. There’s also “oh look, guys have it bad too”, which is just a lazy way to say “hey we feel threatened” and/or “we don’t care” – which is fine, but as long as you’re saying that upfront. Disguising apathy as “just trying to make a point” (or something like that) is simply disingenuous, and hurts the efforts made by those who really do give a damn.

I think it’s important to address these issues, as I find most of the objections towards feminism highly focused on what extremist right wingers say, which isn’t great. Why? Because feminism isn’t a single policy, but instead it is a wider movement that broadly aims at attaining gender equality. However, the methods by which that equality is obtained can vary wildly, as does achieving something in every movement.

So there will be different fronts in different regions and in different societies, at different levels and different mediums. After all, gender inequality isn’t a single target to be eliminated; it’s a systematic problem across our species and manifests itself in almost all the activities we undertake.

So the widest misconception is that feminism doesn’t want equality, it wants women to be superior/dominate over men. The fact that people seem afraid of this amuses me, because for women, the fact that men are treated better by society or are generally dominant is a reality and not just a mere doomsday scenario. Anyway, as I stated at the beginning of this paragraph, it’s a misconception, so let’s talk about what mainstream feminism wishes to attain.

Well, equality. Social, political, and professional. It usually (very broadly) boils down to these things:

• Equal pay for equal work
• Equal opportunities for education and work
• Equal weight (in terms of representation at the very least) in national and international politics
• Being able to move about at any given time with equal chances of being sexually assaulted/harassed as a man would under the same circumstances (irrespective of clothing, or lack of thereof)
• Equal protection in marriage laws
• Equal social right and privilege to men

There are others, I’m sure, but this is all that I can think of as of now. There is one other thing, the most important from a social standpoint: the right and freedom to choose how to be treated. This last point came up during a discussion with a friend who was fixated upon a defining equality as a blanket concept without adding real world nuances and concepts, again making it seem that feminism was attempting to promote inequality (paradoxical, I say). But, I thank my friend for coming to this conclusion (that women want the right and freedom to choose how to be treated), because it confirms my belief that a thing that men already have seems to be treated as such a big deal when it comes to women wanting the same thing.

So, women apparently want the right and freedom to choose how to be treated, and they want to be treated differently than men. And I say to that: obviously, they’re not men! Do you treat an orca and tiger the same? Do you treat an orang-utan and a chimpanzee the same? Or a humming bird and a swallow? No!

I know I’m being hyperbolic to the point of being wildly inaccurate (no pun intended on wild), but what I’m trying to say is that men and women are indeed different, primarily in terms of biology. Biology must be accounted for. Some would say “HAH! THAT’S WHAT WE’RE SAYING TOO!” – but no, they’re not saying the same thing. They’re using biological differences (primarily focused on physical strength) for providing what appears to be a justification for women being treated inferiorly by societies in general. This is only partially true, as history has shown that women were deemed unfit and actively prevented from voting, doing non-manual-labour-related paid work, or receiving an education – all things that had nothing to do with strength. The Israeli Armed Forces and women in Punjab (during the militancy) and those fighting in Kurdistan against the Islamic State’s militia today, among others, have proven that women can and have fought wars despite a generally weaker constitution (as compared to men).

The strength argument also holds extremely little water in the post-industrial age, during which machines did most of the hard work for us. In the information age, it’s mostly bollocks.

So coming back to my point: accommodate for biological differences and ensure women aren’t cut a raw deal. That’s one of the goals here. The idea is to adapt the society to ensure an environment where women feel equal and not supressed or dominated.

“BUT HEY, I CAN PUNCH A GUY IN THE CHEST AND HE WON’T COMPLAIN BUT I CAN’T HIT A GIRL!” I hear you shout at me, “INEQUALITY! FEMINAZIS!”. Dudebro chill, our chests are muscles and a layer of fat, their breasts are mostly fat, and they’ll get hurt. When I used to attend Karate classes we were specifically told that we could only punch girls in a certain band in the abdomen, because hey, their reproductive organs are internal (as opposed to testis, which we obviously weren’t allowed to hit either) and they’d get seriously hurt. That’s not promoting inequality, it’s fucking common sense.

And anyway, a lot of guys will complain, because not everyone is built the same. If you’re not respecting those complaints, you’re not being an “equalist” or anything, you’re being a fucking moron. And if you are, then well done good sir, you’re respecting another guy’s right to choose how he wants to be treated. Which, if you remember, was a major goal for feminism, but for women, because men usually get others to respect their rights.

Coming to this point, I think it’s worth mentioning that constitutional law in most countries does guarantee equal rights to all citizens, irrespective of gender, even though social norms are usually not. However, some laws, like those of inheritance or marriage (in India, for example), are skewered in favour of men or patriarchy. It’s also worth mentioning here that in sexual assault cases (where the majority of victims/survivors aren’t men) have to prove the defendant guilty, they can be grilled in extremely (mentally) agonising ways by the defense.

Of course, the defendant is usually shamed instantly be society, though the woman’s case is dismissed by society if the man is powerful or rich, as she’s assumed to have a motive in the accusation. Anyway, it can be a pretty grey area, and is arguably an entirely separate topic on its own, so I digress.

The other point worth mentioning is that feminism advocates freedom from gender stereotypes for both genders, and an extension of this also recognises the lack of a gender binary. So people should be free to behave (as long as they’re not harming – in the sense of violating constitutional rights – others, of course), dress, etc. in whichever way that they want. So if I want to dress in a pink sweater, I shouldn’t be ridiculed for it, if a woman wants to go hunting, her womanliness shouldn’t be a matter of debate. It shouldn’t be a requirement for a woman to be shorter than a man for them to be lovers or get married, it should be okay for a woman to work while the man takes care of the kids at home, etc.

I’ve also been told that currently the social equation is like this:

And I want:

While that person wants:

Which I want too, but I’m not sure what’s coming across as me wanting the second picture above. Probably going back to discussion we were having that day would help. It was about the (currently unreleased) movie, 50 Shades of Grey.

The actor dude was apparently chosen on the basis of being physically attractive to women. Well, the novel on which the movie is based is supposedly an erotic novel marketed towards females (though a female friend of mine who reads a lot of novels found it poorly written and generally un-erotic), so I think it’s a fairly obvious requirement.

“BUT WAAAAIT YOU FEMINAZI SO-AND-SO! THE HOT GIRLS PANDERING TO MALE AUDIENCES THAT FILL OUR MEDIA ARE NOT OKAY BUT THIS ONE-OFF MOVIE WHICH IS PANDERING TO WOMEN IS OKAY? YOU HYPOCRITICAL BASTARD!”

Geez, calm your testicles, boys. Repeat that sentence a few times. Good. What have you learnt?

“BUT…I WANT THE ONE WITH THE BIGGER GEE BEES!”

That’s what she said!

“OH SO SHE CAN HAVE THE ONE WITH THE BIGGER GEE BEES BUT I CAN’T? INEQUALITY! FEMINAZI!”

What? I was talking about that female voice in the video

“NOW YOU UNDERSTAND.”

Er. Kay.

So yeah. In a culture that sexualises women all the time, asks them to plaster themselves with makeup and (in India) fairness creams, undergo painful waxing or other hair removal processes, makes fun of them for a bit of hair on the upper lip, and freaking takes them to a temple for purification after their menstrual cycle is over – just because men think it’s proper or want it that way, a random movie in which a dude was sexualised on purpose is not a bad thing.

“BUT IT ENCOURAGES MEN TO LOOK A CERTAIN WAY TO BE ACCEPTED AS DESIREABLE, HENCE PROVING THE DUPLICITOUSNESS OF YOUR ARGUMRENT!”

Duplicitousness?

Well, yes it does. And it’s not a good thing in general. But there is always context. He’s being sexualised because the book’s subject matter is such. Had it been more like “hey this is what real men are like, women don’t like anything else” irrespective of what’s happening, then that’s undesirable. But even then, one exception doesn’t disprove the rule. If you ask the Romans, “exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis”, i.e. “the exception confirms the rule in cases not expected”. The rule being “general media (film/TV/games) is marketed towards men”, the implied exception being when it’s not marketed towards men, which almost always seems to cause a reaction from men, for some reason.

And anyway, the other argument is to not sexualise anyone in media. Which may be good, but really, would you want that? Isn’t sexualising both in equal proportion, with appropriate context and not just to sell more copies of something (or get more hits on your webpage), better? It’s not like you’re going to not go home and watch porn, is it? So why pretend?

That said, you don’t always have to sexualise things (which promotes body image issues on both sides), neither must there be a standard form of sexualisation, or sexiness. Why must a thin leggy girl with a certain type of hair and a skimpy outfit be the only form of sexy? Why must a 6 ft. tall dude with prominent pectoral muscles be the only form of male sexiness? Encourage experimentation and encourage diversity of content. That should be the aim.

Currently, most of the content creates body image issues for both, but the pressure is more on women. There’s also the case that standard “hot” women in media are supposed to be sexually appealing to men, and the muscle men are primarily supposed to be idols for men. It sells the idea that you’ll get “hot chicks” if you’re like Salman Khan. But hey, even if you’re not, if you’re a successful/rich guy, you’ll still get the girl (seriously, you can’t deny that this is pretty common too). Women on the other hand are almost always the obtained party, the “acquired bahu” (daughter-in-law), the acquired hot girl, etc. while the dude’s almost always doing the acquiring.

The few times that the woman is sexually assertive (see Deepika Padukone in Ramleela and Finding Fanny; Pariniti Chopra – to some extent – in Kill Dill), the reaction I get from people is mostly “aisa thodi hota hai” (that doesn’t happen [in real life]). Well, no shit.

So I say, don’t miss the woods for the trees. Movies sexualising men for a potential female fantasy (instead of a male power fantasy) are good things, and we need more of them!

Once we hit equilibrium, we can talk about the third picture. But no one climbs a gradient without expending energy and maintaining status quo. You can’t balance an inequality while maintaining status quo. You have to either keep one side of the equation constant while increasing the other, reduce the first while keeping the other constant, or bring one down and bring the other up.

You could also keep both growing, but the let the lesser grow faster, to catch up. Obviously, the rate of growth on both sides will be unequal. But would you not rather have this, than any of the other above options? Here at least, both are growing together.

Feminism aims to be that energy source which lets both grow together. I’ve written around 2400 words. It’s 3:33 AM on what will be the shortest day of the year. I rest my case.